I am many things, but an educator is not one of them. I suffer from a crippling "cognitive bias" for lack of a better term. I know only how I think and I seem to be capable only of relaying concepts to others in the way that I understand them, which is usually not intuitive to other people. Teaching is at the top of my list of things I hate doing. Maybe I suck at it because I hate it, or maybe I hate it because I suck at it. Probably both; anyway the effect is the same.
My daughter is struggling with math and I feel helpless to help her. I don't know of any helpful jingles or mnemonics because I don't use any. For me, math just "happens." When I sit down with her to tutor her, I start out frustrated because I already know what's coming (her hum-hawwing over a problem until I throw her a bone, and then another, and another, holding her hand through the entire process, and her not retaining even a single step to apply to the next problem), and then when it comes, the frustration intensifies. I end up being overly grouchy which turns her off to learning, which I pick up on, and frustrates me even more, and what's worse is that it gives me ammo to pin the problem on her: "Well I can't teach you if you don't even want to learn." With a clear head (like now) I know it's my fault, but in the heat of the moment I always see her attentiveness as the problem.
Our tutoring sessions last hours and leave both of us exhausted and feeling like no forward progress was made. So, I rarely tutor her now. Maybe once every week or two, when she brings home bad grades. She's failing and I don't seem to be capable of improving her grades. Or maybe that's just something I tell myself. I've looked into getting a tutor for her; someone with a competency for teaching, and in this little town we live in, I haven't been able to find anyone. I have her grandfather tutoring her now via skype, but that seems less than effective. He is a very good teacher, and his grandkids who live with him are at the top of their classes because of his tutelage. But there is some disconnect I think, by not being in the same room.
Bottom line is I feel like I'm not doing the best I can for her, and I want to do more. I want to be a better educator and a better father. I know we have a lot of educators on this site, so I'm hoping someone might have some tips for a begrudging beginner teacher. How do you force a concept into someone's mind that just doesn't want to take?
I guess it would be helpful to describe the problems she's having; it seems to be comprehension in reading. It manifests itself of course in reading (she's failing that) and math, specifically word problems. She's in 4th grade. Math problems like "Suzie has $8,844 and wants to give it equally to all four of her children;" she doesn't know what operation to perform. She will just randomly pick an operation and go with it. Her answer might be $35,376 because she multiplied, and the fact that it's higher than $8,844 doesn't set off any alarms in her head. In reading, she can read the entire passage aloud, get all the words correct, and then you ask her something about what she read an she goes back to the passage to find the answer. If you don't ask her verbatim how it was written, she'll spend 30min reading it over and over until you stop her.
My daughter is struggling with math and I feel helpless to help her. I don't know of any helpful jingles or mnemonics because I don't use any. For me, math just "happens." When I sit down with her to tutor her, I start out frustrated because I already know what's coming (her hum-hawwing over a problem until I throw her a bone, and then another, and another, holding her hand through the entire process, and her not retaining even a single step to apply to the next problem), and then when it comes, the frustration intensifies. I end up being overly grouchy which turns her off to learning, which I pick up on, and frustrates me even more, and what's worse is that it gives me ammo to pin the problem on her: "Well I can't teach you if you don't even want to learn." With a clear head (like now) I know it's my fault, but in the heat of the moment I always see her attentiveness as the problem.
Our tutoring sessions last hours and leave both of us exhausted and feeling like no forward progress was made. So, I rarely tutor her now. Maybe once every week or two, when she brings home bad grades. She's failing and I don't seem to be capable of improving her grades. Or maybe that's just something I tell myself. I've looked into getting a tutor for her; someone with a competency for teaching, and in this little town we live in, I haven't been able to find anyone. I have her grandfather tutoring her now via skype, but that seems less than effective. He is a very good teacher, and his grandkids who live with him are at the top of their classes because of his tutelage. But there is some disconnect I think, by not being in the same room.
Bottom line is I feel like I'm not doing the best I can for her, and I want to do more. I want to be a better educator and a better father. I know we have a lot of educators on this site, so I'm hoping someone might have some tips for a begrudging beginner teacher. How do you force a concept into someone's mind that just doesn't want to take?
I guess it would be helpful to describe the problems she's having; it seems to be comprehension in reading. It manifests itself of course in reading (she's failing that) and math, specifically word problems. She's in 4th grade. Math problems like "Suzie has $8,844 and wants to give it equally to all four of her children;" she doesn't know what operation to perform. She will just randomly pick an operation and go with it. Her answer might be $35,376 because she multiplied, and the fact that it's higher than $8,844 doesn't set off any alarms in her head. In reading, she can read the entire passage aloud, get all the words correct, and then you ask her something about what she read an she goes back to the passage to find the answer. If you don't ask her verbatim how it was written, she'll spend 30min reading it over and over until you stop her.